I often marvel at the divergence of the two main uses of the word "cynicism", one deep and healthy,
the other flat and mistaken. The more I learn about Diogenes, the more I find cynicism to be a values-based,
perhaps the most values-based, approach to life. It's almost optimistic in its implications. But the essence
of cynicism, it seems to me, is to avoid trusting things like "implications" and theory (including
doctrine, laws, conventions, etc.). In this sense, Jon's explanation of a drift from the "pure" to
the practical is a very cynical, and laudable, trend.
Of course, I reject any of the Cynics' claims to adhere to Nature. They didn't
know the difference between Nature and, say, civilization any better than any
of us do/did. And they often seem wildly arrogant in their claims to such. But
whatever; the willingness to avoid preemptive *capture* by some arbitrarily
canalized rule set allows them to create and occupy niches, to enrich the world
in a way the civilized cannot.
So there's my relatively amateurish defense of cynicism. Take it or leave it.
8^D But we should try not to *flatten* or straw man it. While it may be
unseemly to live in a jar and poop in the street as dogs might do, it's the
seemliness that's suspicious, not the dogs.
On 9/11/25 9:07 AM, Steve Smith wrote:
Jon -
Thanks for sharing this bit. I can't disagree that the dynamics of this list includes
orbits into (gross) cynicism. Sometimes I look away, sometimes i make popcorn and
(cynically) watch (my riff on glen's riff on "gross"), and sometimes i. wax up
my metaphors and throw down, shooting my own curls of cynicism.
I think your humble observation of that without contributing to it is of direct
help to me. It rings with the resonances I'm feeling/hearing in the aftermath
of this Charlie Kirk shooting. Cynicism is like a horned callous, grown there
for a purpose under chronic insult, but in the way an impediment to most all
other purposes? And occasionally acutely interferes with everything good.
In my personal life, I'm more prone to the practical than the theoretical (by a
few intervals) than you I think, but I am also prone to abstraction over
grounded concretation.
Sometimes it serves me in the pursuit of noodling out the tangled web we (I)
keep weaving around ourselves as we scramble forward into the unknown
(minimizing surprisal while pushing the knot of circumstances in it's bow
wave?), but as you might be alluding to (or pointing directly at?) decoupling
from *some* honest attempt at a utility function is perhaps the ultimate fools
strategy.
As you know from our visits here, I surround myself with a world which presents
regular puzzles for me to solve just to keep going in a practical sense... how
to stay warm/cool, what to eat (beyond the eggs myu chickens and the spinach my
garden patch gives me, and whether a given branch on a given tree might serve
us all better as next winters firewood, this summer's shade or a lesson in
humility when it cracks and falls on something else I find utility in.
To many, these puzzles might be a burden, but to me they are my saving grace,
something to tether the bouyant balloon of my mind from floating off into the
stratosphere well above the clouds it thought it was rising to dance among.
I just spent a week with two active 9 year olds in Wisconsin, a few hours with
a 13 year old and planning a loooong drive with a 7 year old. I'm envious of
those of you who have that kind of innocence in your lives daily... it has been
decades for me and only now do I appreciate how much it shaped me for the
better.
- Steve
On 9/11/25 9:40 am, Jon Zingale wrote:
"""
Well, IDK Lawvere (other than from that category book). But it would be interesting to, while young, formulate
the predicates you'd like to satisfy when you're old. Renee' and I regularly marvel that we're still alive. When
we were young, we couldn't even imagine we'd live this long, much less imagine what properties we might have. I
suppose it's that ugly diachronic/narrativity thing again. Like ChatGPT, we can tell ourselves stories about
anything. And we'll even believe them. When I was a kid, "story" was synonymous with
"lying". "You're not telling us stories, are you?" - a regular question coming from my
parents. My response was literally irrelevant. They already had their narrative of whatever I might or might not
have done. Whose telling the stories, here?!?! >8^D
"""
He had a great impact on my mathematical life and thought. I considered him a
spiritual father and I regret not writing to him before he passed. He was
wonderfully generous with his time and his stories were poignant, keeping a
target in mind. I suppose I am sharing because it is one of my happiest
memories and because I believe the list could use a little less cynicism. There
is so much cynicism everywhere.
As to who I wish to be? I am already so completely different from my earliest imaginings; I wouldn't know where to start. Even as of late, my perspectives and thoughts are radically different from what they were months ago. In some ways, this seems catalyzed by a shift away from pure mathematics and toward developing tools for doing science—catalyzed by the overwhelm I feel when confronted by anything I attempt to build that might stand. The specificity and idiosyncratic nature of the phenomena I am studying does a lot to eat through my theorist leanings. I am not an academic; what I am hoping to build must work. The whole exercise is altering my stance. The past appears as a prelude to much less than I imagined. The toy models I and others seem to carry remind me of the useless idols and charms that died in the hands, or around the necks, of the early Christian settlers to this new world. A child's baseball glove in a box of belongings, carried by a woman on her first day
of college.
--
¡sıɹƎ ןıɐH ⊥ ɐןןǝdoɹ ǝ uǝןƃ
Ἐν τῷ ἄλλοις αἴλουροι τὰς ἐχθροὺς ὀξύνονται, ἐγὼ τοὺς φίλους μου ὀξύνομαι ἵνα
σῶμαι αὐτούς.
.- .-.. .-.. / ..-. --- --- - . .-. ... / .- .-. . / .-- .-. --- -. --. / ...
--- -- . / .- .-. . / ..- ... . ..-. ..- .-..
FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv
Fridays 9a-12p Friday St. Johns Cafe / Thursdays 9a-12p Zoom
https://bit.ly/virtualfriam
to (un)subscribe http://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com
FRIAM-COMIC http://friam-comic.blogspot.com/
archives: 5/2017 thru present https://redfish.com/pipermail/friam_redfish.com/
1/2003 thru 6/2021 http://friam.383.s1.nabble.com/
